Hydrate, Spray, Hydrate, Spray, Pee, Hydrate, Spray

For a singer, the only solution for nerves (and the resultant disease, "cotton mouth") is a humble little thing called "acceptance."

Nerves are nerves. We get anxious or we overthink something and, "wheee!," there they are.

No amount of water from the fountain, a cooler or 10-gallon plastic bottle is going wet your whistle enough to overcome a case of nerves before that callback, meeting with the director or producer, or life-changing performance opportunity.

Truly, the best way to deal with nerves is not to focus on them at all. Don't expend good energy on trying to suppress something very normal. Accept nerves as part of your current condition.

Yeah, some singers go nutty with their water and throat sprays, lozenges, etc., because --at that point/by that time -- it's too late for them to treat the cause and they are now stuck treating the symptom.

How to avoid the cause?

Train your body to lead your voice, not your voice to lead your body.

Train athletically, incorporating your body into your voice, not just leaving your vocal cords to do all the heavy lifting.

Don't think against yourself. Circumvent the mind by first training your spirit into your singing. The use of energy is crucial, whether you want to conquer a stage or a stadium.

Train body, spirit, voice in that order and the mind won't be able to play the naughty tricks we like to play on ourselves.

Like talking ourselves out of our passion for singing, bringing up old wounds, rejections, resentments, criticism, childhood traumas... ferget 'em!

As in a 100 meter dash, when we train our voices athletically, nerves disappear at the sound of the starting pistol (or at the bell tone of our audition song). There can be no nerves, nor any awareness of nerves, when we are only focused on winning the race.

Joe DiPietro, You Bastard!!

Actually, Joe isn't a bastard at all -- far from it.

I just thought that would be a catchy title for a post.

In truth, Joe is an amazing writer, terrifically funny, human and humane, a soft-spoken sports book of knowledge and an all-round very decent kind of fella.

Along with Jimmy Roberts, Joe wrote "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change." A catchy title in and of itself and also a musical that will probably run Off Broadway until the year 2525.

Maybe longer.

Joe also wrote, along with Jimmy Roberts, the Off-Broadway musical "The Thing About Men," which was called "Men" when it made its world premiere at Tim and Buck Busfield's B Street Theatre in Sacramento several years ago. I had the great fortune to play the lead character, Tom Ambrose -- a role I still believe is one of the great men's roles in American musicals.

Seriously.

Tom Ambrose gets to sing and ride a bike, wear a gorilla mask, boxing gloves and a robe, play the ukelele, scheme, scream and plot and ultimately twist the audience into a direction they didn't expect. And he makes people laugh the entire time.

The run was sold out and we got standing ovations every night. True.

I hate having to give a standing ovation, but I sure don't mind getting one.

Just call me "The Happy Hypocrite."

Anyway, Joe is a chronic re-writer and a massive "cutter." He would apologize profusely at giving me rewrites, new pages, new dialogue to learn during the week of opening (and a couple shows after that) -- but I was glad to do it because a) Joe is an inspiration and b) He was making the show better. Nothin' wrong with making a show better.

So where was I going with this?

Oh yeah. I had to turn down the East Coast run of "Men" because my daughter Julia Rose had just been born and it's very difficult feeding a family on $15 a day while performing in small houses in New Jersey and Florida. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I was told I was the second choice for the East Coast tour because a super talented Broadway actor suddenly couldn't get out of his contract to do Joe and Jimmy's show. So, it was, "Uh, Bill, can you leave L.A. in three days and come rehearse with us?" In truth, that didn't bum me out, that was just business, but I still had to turn it down.

Nathalie and I sent Joe a birth announcement. Jimmy, too.

Flash forward seven years.

Julia Rose has turned seven.

Joe has written at least a play a week and a musical a month including the open and closed (sadly enough) Broadway Elvis musical "All Shook Up."

And now the regional theatres are getting ahold of the rights and this breakdown just came out:

Breakdown for
ALL SHOOK UP (Combined EPA/ECC Singers)
Musical Theatre
WestLong Beach, CA
LOA ref WCLO

NATALIE HALLER (20's- 30): a mechanic. A small town girl who dreams of more. Lusts after Chad. Dresses up as ‘Ed’ to get closer. LEAD

CHAD (25-35): a great-lookin', motorcycling, guitar-playing, leather-jacketed roustabout. The "Elvis" character. LEAD

JIM HALLER (mid 40's-50's): Natalie's widowed father. Middle-aged and messy, he still
longs for his wife. SUPPORTING

Last part of the story...

Yes, my wife Nathalie is 20 years younger.

We'll be turning 80 together this November/December.

You're invited.

Especially you, Joe DiPietro!

(and even if all of this is a super strange coincidence, I'm still gonna stick to my story!)